The Problem with Christians

[Angrboda]

Are you seriously arguing how unlikely the eye would be if it didn't evolve, that it occurred just by single step random mutation? Nobody is arguing that the eye came into being purely by chance. Evolution is a process involving self-reinforcing steps. That you present this bogus calculation as if it had anything to do with anything is ridiculous. You can't demonstrate design by knocking down a straw man representation of evolution. The evolution of the eye is well documented and it didn't occur by 'random chance'.

[LadyForCamus]

Spinning evolution out of straw is the ONLY way design proponents can argue against it.

[Ravenshire]

You're going with the eye to support your creator, eh? Ok then, why does your creator love Octopi more than humans? It gave them a far superior eye.

I'm simply demonstrating the statistical impossibility that the eye evolved through DNA mutation. You should address this.

Irreducible complexity has been addressed ad nauseum on this forum. Perhaps you could show a little intellectual honesty by researching it yourself before coming here to spew your bile all over the place. Prove you give a shit about truth and honesty. Google "debunking irreducible complexity" and see what you get.

I won't be holding my breath waiting. I know the idea scares the shit out of you.

[Esquilax]

Evidence of design would include any multi-part system but let's go with the human eye, a topic you've probably debated many times before, so I'll hopefully be taking a different approach. Here is a brief description of the major parts of the eye.

Yes, I have debated the evolution of the eye many times. One would think that you people would stop bringing it up, since we actually know how the eye evolved, but I think if there's one thing we've all learned from this discussion, it's that you in particular won't let your complete unwillingness/inability to research stop you from making wild, unjustified assertions.

What we have is an integrated system of many parts and each part is supposedly a product of random  genetic mutation. However, on their own, the vast majority of these mutations would have been useless, since they are dependent on the other parts in order to function. For instance, you could have a perfectly formed eye, but with no optic nerve you won't see anything, and even if you had an optic nerve, you still couldn't see unless you had millions of neurons, with hundreds of millions of connections in the brain to interpret and process the data.

Except that the eye didn't pop out of nowhere, fully formed, in a single step, nor did it evolve each individual part of a modern eye like building a model kit of a single designed end result, as though coming together to form a modern eye. Rather, isolated and simple mutations coalesced into its current form: at no point did an individual component of a human eye evolve in place, then another, and then another, etc. Different organs, evolved for different functions, gradually evolved additional functionality and formed the mechanisms of the eye. Each individual mutation served some use on its own, and eventually those uses changed and expanded as more structures analogous to the eye began to form. It actually started out as just a light sensitive patch of cells on the "skin" of an organism: Here, you can check it out, if you want. Not that you will, since it disagrees with what you want to be true, but still...

So, not only is your whole conception of the situation so comically misrepresentative that it's laughable, but you also mention useless mutations, as though the fact that they're useless would preclude them from happening at all, which is yet another area that I wish you'd bothered to look up before you opened your mouth: useless mutations persist in populations all the time simply because they aren't fatal to the organisms enough to be selected out. It's why humans have wisdom teeth still.

Why won't you just research before you speak, for once?

So what are the chances that random mutations (of the sex cell)s could write the code for a complete visual system? I would say none. As I demonstrated with the haemaglobin example, the chances of randomly generating the correct sequence of amino acids to create this one protein was one in 10 to the power of 650. But now we have to have a very large number of random mutations to produce thousands of different proteins required to make vision possible. If we look at a tiny part of the whole visual system, the aqueous humor, we see that it contains hundreds of different proteins,

So, just to be clear: you're... ignoring my response to your Hemoglobin claim, which is equally applicable to your claims about the eye, and just pretending that it never happened? You're going to persist with this, despite having already been debunked almost as soon as you made the claim?

That's... that's what you're going for here? Ostrich with its head in the sand?

So what is the statistical probability that random mutations of the DNA would end up coding for the 676 proteins found in the aqueous humor?

Why do you still insist that this is the process exclusively described by evolution, despite being corrected on this at least three times by now, just by me alone? Are you ignoring my responses, or just haven't you read them? Are you lying, or ignorant?

That would be (on average) one in twenty multiplied by one in twenty, 450 times for each protein, multiplied by 676 for the total number of proteins. Since 10 to the power of 50 is considered absurd, and the chances of correctly constructing each of the 676 proteins by chance is vastly more than 10 to the power of 50, this equates to zero probability that the aqueous humor proteins could develop by random chance.

Bear in mind that the AH proteins are a tiny part of the visual system, the chances of having random DNA mutations being responsible for the thousands of essential protein components in the rest of the visual system is just plain absurd.

And now that we've reached the end of yet another comprehensive refutation that you'll no doubt ignore, I'll ask my favorite question that you seem desperate to avoid: do you have any positive evidence for your god?

In fact, do you even know what positive evidence is? Because I asked you for some regarding design, and when you finally deigned to respond your "evidence" was "this is so unlikely under evolution," which is, to those paying attention at home, negative evidence. I asked you for something that demonstrates design, and you responded by attempting to poke another hole in evolution, which is, you know, the opposite of that. All you ever do is subtract, and bitch, and go negative. You don't have a single shred of positive evidence for your claim, and so you're reduced to trying to make every other competing claim seem as ridiculous as your claim. It's sad.

[robvalue]

I would love to see a scientific hypothesis about life being designed. No really, I would. It would be very interesting. But I doubt I'll ever see one in my lifetime.

He has now become this guy.

http://youtu.be/IBHEsEshhLs

[AJW333]

The Neanderthal narrative has changed a lot over the years. Initially he was very ape-like and couldn't speak since he didn't have the necessary physical attributes. That's all changed and it is now considered that Neanderthals were able to speak and in many other ways were much closer to humans than previously considered. So is it correct to consider them a different species to human beings? Probably not.

No, it wouldn't be correct, but only because individuals of the species Homo neanderthalensis were human beings - for the same reason that ostriches are birds. Every species of the genus Homo is human. Thus it would be and indeed is perfectly correct to consider Neanderthals a different species to Homo sapiens sapiens. You really need to be more precise in your use of language when talking about these subjects.

"A species is often defined as a group of individuals that actually or potentially interbreed in nature."
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_41

If neanderthals and regular humans interbred, then wouldn't that make them the same species?

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If the DNA mutations aren't random, what controls them?

My boy... is anything random?

And did I not say "bound by chemistry"?

If nothing is random then entropy doesn't exist.

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This represents a complete distortion of the mathematics. When fertilizing an egg cell with a sperm cell, it makes no difference which sperm fertilizes which egg. Any combination will do.

Yes, it does matter in the sense that you are you, exactly as you are, which I think was Julia's point.  But anyway...so where your Nobel Prize?  Hell, where is your Templeton Prize?  I mean since you, AJW333 of AF.org possess the scientific holy grail of proof of design.  Oh wait...don't answer that yet...let me know when I can expect the deluge of conspiracy theories; I'd like to put my galoshes on.

Can we just deal with the numbers?

[LadyForCamus]

Can you address the first part of my comment first? The one in regards to what Julia posted to you? Cuz, ya know...it's the part where you're wrong. Thanks. Then I'll be happy to listen to your distorted statistics.

[AJW333]

if you want the shortened version, it goes more like this;

Analyzing the random DNA mutations required to produce the proteins that form the eye reveals it to be not just unlikely but a statistical impossibility.

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I'm simply demonstrating the statistical impossibility that the eye evolved through DNA mutation. You should address this.

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Can we stick to the issue, which is evidence for design? By showing you that random mutations of the DNA cannot produce the necessary structures to produce the eye, it leaves us with the inevitable conclusion that it has been designed.

The point i'm trying to make is that even if you could inference a designer you cant identify said entity.  We cannot look beyond the petri dish at the designer.  We are in a situation that one bacteria is saying to another "something must be beyond us and I am stating that it must be in accordance to my idea."  The other bacteria says "I don't know but I'm not going to accept your idea of this until that entity communicates with me because that is the only way to know for sure."  The real difference between this scenario and the god idea is that we cannot communicate with bacteria but it is claimed that a god can communicate with us.  I'm sorry but i cannot concede to such arrogance, if such a being did in fact exist, that it would care if we believe in it or not or that it "loves" us.
It is still much more humble and noble to say "I don't know so I keep looking."

I don't know if you saw my wristwatch analogy but if you found a watch with no markings, you would still conclude that it was designed by someone, even if you couldn't identify that person by looking at the watch. You would still be satisfied that they existed. Tracking down the designer may indeed be difficult but one thing is for certain - they exist. And another thing is possible - if you found him, you may not like him.

[Cyberman]

If neanderthals and regular humans interbred, then wouldn't that make them the same species?

No, they're different species but closely related ones. Lions and tigers can interbreed, but that doesn't make them the same species.

[Silver]

I don't know if you saw my wristwatch analogy but if you found a watch with no markings, you would still conclude that it was designed by someone, even if you couldn't identify that person by looking at the watch. You would still be satisfied that they existed. Tracking down the designer may indeed be difficult but one thing is for certain - they exist. And another thing is possible - if you found him, you may not like him.

There are plenty of arguments against your watchmaker one.

http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-a-sc...30878.html